June 2018

General Hospital: Soap Operas as a Training Ground

Kimberly McCullough, Finola Hughes and Kristina Wagner share how their experiences on General Hospital prepared them for working as directors and collaborating with their crews. Photos of Finola Hughes working on set by Cady McClain from the film Seeing is Believing: Women Direct. Images courtesy of the filmmakers. For daytime dramas, production schedules run at a marathon pace in order to keep the shows airing with five episodes a week, 52 weeks a year. Using a multicamera setup, cast and crew complete upwards to 150 pages a day, capturing scenes in one or two takes. Given those conditions, General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini notes, “Soap operas are an excellent training ground not just for actors but for anyone...more